


Streaming Live From Mom's Basement

by ziva_lives_on



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ed sometimes kisses boys also surprising absolutely no one, First Kiss, Gen, Harry is a confused heterosexual surprising absoultely no one, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, kids need to get their shit together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziva_lives_on/pseuds/ziva_lives_on
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a time before dead interns and close calls with the supernatural, things were simpler. Ed and Harry were young and had a purpose, and they just knew if they wished hard enough they’d make it to Hollywood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Streaming Live From Mom's Basement

1.

It’s just passed midnight and two intoxicated paranormal investigators walk into a tattoo parlour. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but really it’s just the midpoint of a less than classy night out. They’re sitting in a set of dilapidated seats, giggling hysterically as they wait to be served by the well-built man who has a tapestry of art covering his skin and looks like he wrestles bulls for fun. It had started out as a normal Friday night, filled with KFC take-out and Buffy re-runs with some enthusiastic discussion about D&D strategies that occasionally digressed into why Ed would never be able to keep a girlfriend for more than a week.

“It’s because you want to much, dude” Harry preached, “You can’t just want a nice girl- she has to be smart and interested in shit that girls just don’t like and even then, she has to agree with everything that you think about all that stuff. It’s impossible, no one can do that”

He grabbed the remote control and paused the TV just before Buffy kicked some serious butt which always meant truth bombs were imminent. “Look at me” He said, “I don’t care if a girl can speak Elvish, okay? As long as she doesn’t hate me and washes semi-regularly then she’s a catch” Reclining back into the cushy seats in which they’d been lying for the past three hours, he paused from his backward-ass sermon for a minute to give Ed a mischievous look. 

“Speaking of which,” He finally said, “How’s Maggie?” It took Ed less than a second to hit his best friend in the face with a couch cushion. It was then that Harry Senior got back from work, and the whole evening went to shit. The thing about Harry’s dad wasn’t that he was just a dick- he was more than that. The man couldn’t simply walk through a room without criticizing something, which had worn on Harry’s nerves pretty damn quickly considering since they lived alone and the object of his father’s condemnation was usually Harry himself. Needless to say, the father/son relationship wasn’t great. Tonight the issue on his father’s mind was the mess in the living room, and how he worked ‘so damn hard’ to come back to a ‘complete shithole’. At first Harry ignored him like he usually did and just rolled his eyes if his father said anything particularly hurtful. It would have worked too, except tonight Harry’s father was feeling particularly spiteful.  
“You know, it’s times like these that I wish your mother was still alive,” He said, passing by them as he walked towards the drinks cabinet “At least that bitch knew how to keep a house clean.”  
Harry snapped, and it was the first time that Ed saw their conflicts get violent. He isn’t sure who threw the first punch, but the victor was clearly Harry’s dad as Harry sulked away with a bloody nose and a broken sense of self-worth. 

“I hate him,” He declared later on in his bedroom, glaring furiously into the mirror on his wall. “He’s got no right to talk about Mom that way”. Harry sighed deeply, and fell back onto his bed. Harry’s mom had passed away five years earlier, leaving a teenage Harry alone with one of the biggest assholes on the planet. With no wife to beat, Harry Senior didn’t waste a second before taking a swing for his son. Ed knew it wasn’t enough, but dorky nights in of fast food and good TV seemed to lift a weight off his best friend’s shoulders so no matter what he always made time for them. 

“You might as well go home, dude. Tonight’s destined to majorly suck” Harry grumbled, rubbing his nose tentatively.  
“Maybe not,” Ed said, silently plotting. “Your dad’s a dick, we all get that. Maybe it’s time for some karmic retribution” Harry sat up immediately, staring at Ed wide-eyed.  
“There is a lot of bad karma in this house,” He said slowly “How big are we going here?”  
“Somewhere between Ferris Bueller and Pulp Fiction,” Ed responded, “Come on, Spangler. Grab your coat, we’re going to have ourselves some fun”.

2.

Ed is swinging back and forth drunkenly on a rickety seat as Harry tries to explain to the tattoo artist how to spell ‘HELL HOUNDS FOREVER’ in Old English. The conversation is tedious as Harry unknowingly repeats the phrase ‘We’re paranormal investigators’ countless times and eventually the guy gives up and demands Harry fills out his details on some form to keep him occupied. He pokes his head up after a minute and watches Ed gaze longingly at the various designs of dragons and skulls covering the walls.  
“You should get one” He says matter-of-factly. 

“Wha-?” Ed responds, and realises maybe he’s a little drunker than he originally thought- Harry Senior’s scotch wasn’t exactly lemonade and they’d nearly bought out the liquor store before they went to Nando’s. Or maybe it was after Nando’s but before they’d bought weed off the dishevelled looking guy outside ‘The Lucky Cowboy’.

“Tattoos are cool” Harry muses, “Hey, why don’t we get matching ones? Then we can be blood brothers, except in ink so everyone in prison knows we’re friends” Harry grins widely. He is very, very drunk after all.  
“I’ll pass, dude,” Ed responds slowly, staring intently at a design of a naked mermaid slashing open an ogre’s throat with a katana. “Needles creep me out”  
“You can’t have any fear, Ed Zeddmore!” Harry yells, stumbling slightly as he waves his hands frantically in the air to emphasize his point. “Not if you’re gonna face ghosts!”  
“You still haven’t signed the form” The tattoo artist groans, staring at Ed and Harry as if they were children. Harry mumbles an apology and quickly scrawls across the page before giving it back to the man.  
“You didn’t fill in your address” He says in a monotonous tone, already bored with the two.  
“I live on the edge of life” Harry slurs, “Where… danger lies” The tattoo artist doesn’t blink and simply states if Harry doesn’t give him an actual address then he can’t get a tattoo. 

“Alright, Ghostbusters. Time to shine.” The surly tattoo artist says after Harry spends five more minutes meticulously filling out his address.  
“We don’t bust ghosts, we face them.” Harry whines indignantly as he follows the man to a chair covered in plastic and a disturbing amount blood.  
The tattoo artist glares, clearly not amused with their drunken antics “What’s the difference?”  
“Facing involves less violence, we’re more about confronting spectres and getting them on camera than actually, you know… getting rid of them” Ed voice trails off at the end, as he admires the tattoo artists rippling muscles and realizes that how puny their job sounds.  
“Whatever” The man grumblings, choosing to inspect the large needs he’ll be using rather than engage with them anymore. Harry settles into the chair and starts swinging his legs idly. The alcohol had really taken the edge off. The tattoo artists begins by printing the text boldly in marker onto Harry’s stomach. It reads ‘Ceastre hundas ferhþ’ but Ed doesn’t get to stare for too long as the guy wastes no time in inking it onto Harry’s body. It doesn’t surprise Ed when his best friend squeals like a prize pig and he barely flinches when he feels Harry claw desperately on his arm. Between the deep groans and the ridiculous facial expressions, Ed finds the whole ordeal hilarious. Once it’s over and Harry’s staring proudly at it in the mirror, Ed feels almost jealous.

“The grammar is kinda off because I didn’t have my pocket dictionary on hand but other than that I’d say it’s pretty good” Harry says, smiling proudly.  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen any guy cry as much as you did,” The tattoo artist remarks, smirking at the pair. “The Ghostfacers… you’re like the Ghostbusters weakling sidekicks”  
It’s an insult, and they would have been shocked that the tattoo artist was actually smiling but both Ed and Harry were caught in a pristine moment where everything fell into place.  
“That,” Ed says, pointing at the tattoo artist. “That, but in Elvish. On my back” The guy just stands there, clearly confused until Harry whispers ‘Ghostfacers’ in a whimsical tone.  
“Right, whatever” He says not even trying to conceal his boredom, “More money for me, yay”.  
“And an extra hour with us!” Harry smiles, slapping the man on the back. He grumbles a quiet ‘let’s just get this over with’ and guides Ed through the same protocol as he did with Harry.  
“Hollywood is gonna be all over us once we go viral” Harry says to the tattoo artist, who ignores him. 

“What exactly do you want this to say?” The tattoo artist asks. “Just so I don’t fuck up and write ‘cocksucker’ like I desperately want to”.  
“Mân Taur-en-Faroth” Ed says, enunciating clearly as if it would help the man understand. “It’s Sindarin for ghost hunters, which is close enough” Before the man can even ask, Ed goes on. “Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J.R.R. Tolkien, used by the immortal Elves in Middle-Earth” When the man doesn’t respond, Ed simply states “Elves are super badass”.  
“Just try to not cry as much as your friend did, it’s distracting and who knows, my hand could slip and I might stab you in the eye” The tattoo artist stares at Ed, who stares pitifully back, “Not that I would need much encouragement anyway”.

In the end Ed cries even more than Harry, but the tattoo makes it worth it. Once their bodies are sufficiently scarred, the tattoo artist who remained forever unnamed promptly kicked their asses out of his shop and said if they ever came back he wasn’t to be held responsible for his actions. 

3.  
Feeling alive and a little on the proud side, Ed and Harry began staggering towards Ed’s house but more specifically Ed’s room, with Ed’s couch which they decided was the perfect place to pass the fuck out. They’ve made it three feet out the door of the tattoo parlour when Ed hears a familiar voice shouting at them.  
“Hey, dickwads! You still owe me for that weed!” It was the unkempt man from earlier in the night, and that was when Ed and Harry realised while they’d done a lot of shit in their life, running away from a dude who had more track marks than teeth with a pound of his marijuana showed record high levels of dumbass-ery. 

After they rolled themselves out of Nando’s with bellies full of fried chicken and dirty fingers, they went to the local park and lay down on the grass to watch the stars. Given Harry’s probable ADHD, this pleasant moment lasted three seconds before he suggested that they go get high instead. Given Ed’s probable addiction to weed, he agreed immediately. It was a small town however, and despite urban legends weed does not grow on trees in dark alleyways. To find some of their favourite medicinal plant, they would have to boldly go where no straight man had gone before. ‘The Lucky Cowboy’ was that place. Ed had heard about it from a friend of a friend, and most certainly had not researched it thoroughly with one hand down his pants like Harry claimed. It was just seedy enough that recreational drug taking would be expected, and according to eye witness accounts necessary in order to endure the music that was played. Ed figured it was their best bet at getting their hands on some weed; Harry firmly believed it was just because Ed was dying to get his grind on with an off the clock male stripper. They knew they had no chance of getting into the bar with their sauce stained Marvel shirts and suspicious looking IDs so they focused their attentions on those who sauntered around outside, either thrown out or simply too cool to go in to begin with. It was here that Ed and Harry found their man. Just over six feet with clothes that were fashionable but looked like he’d had more than one rough night in them, the guy looked in desperate need of some cash or excitement and while Ed doubted he was a full-fledged dealer himself, he figured the dude probably had a personal stash and that was good enough in a town where the crime rate was at a national low. 

They approached him cautiously, or at least Ed did- Harry, caught on a ‘almost buzzed’ buzz swaggered towards the stranger without any fear and declared “If you give us some weed my friend will blow you”. As if to add to the appeal, Harry gestured proudly at Ed like a proud mother.  
“I’ve only heard good things” He winked, and Ed promised to himself that he was going to punch Harry in the dick later.  
To the shock of them both, the stranger smirked and gave a gruff ‘Ok’. Harry beamed, and shoved Ed towards the man who had already wandered off into a darker part of the street.  
“Take one for the team” Harry whispered in his ear before stepping out of Ed’s reach, barely missing the punch that he’d aimed at his best friend’s head. Still seriously lacking weed, Ed decided it was in his best interest to negotiate with the gentleman in the most chivalrous way possible with the hope that he’d still maybe sell them something. Given Ed’s social ineptitude the whole idea of ‘I’m not gay and that guy back there is not my pimp’ got lost in translation, and he ended up on his knees in a wet, dark alleyway with a man who was enjoying himself too much. However, Lady Fate was in Ed’s favour when the guy pulled a plump bag of weed from his trousers and dangled it in front of his face.  
“If you want it, you’re gonna have to work for it” He smirked, grabbing Ed by the collar and hauling his ass up. The guy nuzzles Ed’s beard and for a second the whole situation seems almost rose-tinted, that is until the creep licks a slow line up the side of his face. Sufficiently grossed out and sexually confused, Ed snatched the bag of weed out of the guy’s hand and ran for his life. It wasn’t his smoothest escape, but he figured that the stranger couldn’t run with a hard on so his chances of getting caught were minimal. Catching up with Harry, he was greeted with a bear hug that knocked the air out of him.

“Thanks for doing that for me, buddy. You’re a true- why is your face wet?” The bear hug was promptly ended as Harry tried desperately not to retch. “Oh God, please tell me that isn’t what I think it is”  
“It’s really not” Ed sighed, “And next time you try to pimp me to a complete stranger, I will destroy you”  
Harry smiled, patting Ed affectionately on the back. “Say no more friend, I’ll only ever pimp you with your explicit consent”. 

4.

Later that night, they found themselves running desperately albeit very drunkenly down the road to Ed’s house. They could have stopped at any point, paid the guy and ended all the nonsense but as Ed pointed out, ‘face-lickers do not deserve to be paid’. Eventually after a complex game of cat and mouse around the neighbourhood they arrived at Ed’s house minus a crazed drug dealer and their self-respect. Coats were quickly discarded once inside, followed by pants because fuck constricting clothing. Together they lay on the couch, smoking their stolen weed lazily while staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to Ed’s ceiling. They didn’t talk about the fact they were lying on each other, or that Ed was gently drawing circles into his best friend’s thigh with such affection that Harry blushed. 

“This is nice” Ed stated simply, still tracing shapes into the bare patches of skin on Harry’s body. His best friend hummed in response. “We should do this more often”  
“What?” Harry said, barely lifting his head off its place on Ed’s lap. “Be as affectionate as two schoolboys in a yaoi manga?”  
Ed takes a moment to run his hand slowly through his friend’s hair. It’s short (not nearly long enough for effective pulling) and gives off a distinct metrosexual vibe but he still likes it. Harry’s blush intensifies ad he pulls himself off Ed to sit upright.  
“Is weed supposed to make you feel sick- or maybe it’s paranoid?” He looks at Ed warily, “Why are you acting so weird?”  
Ed shrugs. “Can’t a bro be affectionate towards another bro without it being weird?” Harry’s face curls with discomfort.  
“Bros shouldn’t be affectionate towards each other. Bros drink beer, watch football and play dungeons and dragons together. Personally I like my friendship a lot better without hand-holding”  
“Homophobe,” Ed smirks, before glaring at his best friend “Hypocrite! You loved it when Willow and Tara made out, you watched that episode like 50 times over the summer!”  
“That’s different,” Harry scoffs “They’re two hot chicks, it just isn’t sexy when it’s two dudes”  
“I believe the entire fanbase of those sucky Carver Edlund books would disagree” Ed says, before adding “You’re so ignorant, there’s nothing wrong with two dudes making out. Hell, sometimes it can even be hot”. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t looked up a little Hans Solo fanfiction.  
“Maybe for you, Mayor McQueer” Harry laughs, but there’s something uneasy in it as his eyes wander awkwardly around Ed’s room. He shifts in his seat and then coughs. Loudly. Suddenly he’s fixated with his shoelaces.  
“What’s your big deal anyway? Hot people make out with other hot people. Sometimes the hot people happen to be the same gender-“  
“I just don’t like it!” Harry squirmed, “It just grosses me out, cause I think about if it were us and we made out, and then I want to hurl”  
“Ouch,” Ed says, clutching his chest “I’m wounded”  
Harry glares at him “Don’t be a dick, Zeddmore- it’s not like you ever think about kissing me”  
“Every night!” Ed says but the sincerity is ruined by his shit eating grin. Harry hits him because no one should get that much enjoyment from fucking with people.  
“Oh come on, Harry. Don’t huff just cause I don’t fantasize about you like you do about me” He doesn’t smile, and even in his blissed out state, Ed gets worried.  
He places a hand on his best friends arm. Harry pulls away. “Can we not talk about this? I’m too high for deep discussions about human sexuality”.

Ed would like to say he thought about what he did next or some other romantic shit, but really it was just a spur of the moment ‘high off your tits’ kind of thing.  
“Kiss me” Ed says like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Harry nearly chokes on his tongue. Suddenly he’s very aware of the distance between their lips.  
Ed knows fully well there’s no going back. Harry stares at him like he’d just proposed they commit armed robbery, and with a decade of friendship between them Ed can’t shake the fact that he’s definitely fucked things up.  
“Kiss me,” Ed repeats when Harry just stares at him. He can’t hide the fact his voice is shaking and yeah, he’s scared shitless. There’s no rhyme or reason to why he does it, he just feels in that moment it’s what he was supposed to do.  
It takes him totally by surprise when Harry’s the first one to make a move. It’s messy and awkward, and maybe Harry lands more on Ed’s chin than his lips but Harry is kissing him and Ed’s pretty sure his heart simply stops beating. It takes his brain a few seconds to actually register what’s happening but when it does there’s no holding back. Ed grabs his best friend by neck (carefully tilting his head to avoid any awkward forehead bumping) and deepens the kiss because he’ll be damned if all he gets is a peck.  
Okay, maybe Ed had fantasized about this every night. 

Kissing Harry is different that Ed had dreamed it’d be. Of course it’s awkward, because for the most part they’re sexually-frustrated usually heterosexual teenagers with next to no real-life experience in dramatic declarations of love; but for Ed it’s more than that. In his dreams Harry had always tasted like the way he takes his coffee (black with two sugars) and smelt like that cologne he wore when he wanted to impress girls. In reality Harry tasted like spicy chicken mixed with beer which was completely rancid, and smelt like sweat mixed with the tiniest hint of vomit (Ed never did ask his friend what he was doing while he’d fought off the sexual advances of a drug dealer). Harry’s lips feel awkward beneath his own and for a moment Ed thinks Harry will pull away, or hit him or hurl and then there’s a tongue in his mouth and all doubt fades from his mind, or maybe his mind simply stops working. He knows it’s no longer just a chaste peck of the lips, it’s a full-fledged fight for dominance as they grasp each other desperately and he thinks that it just has to mean something. Maybe Harry has feelings for him; that he’s hidden his love for years but finally he can’t hold it in any longer. Maybe Ed isn’t alone.  
Clothes already discarded, the friction between their skin is intoxicating and Ed wonders if once it’s over will he ever be able to look at Harry the same way again. He knows he’s enjoying it too much, moaning too loudly in between ragged breaths but he can’t bring himself to stop as his hips involuntarily buck up against Harry’s leg. Ed grabs and misses Harry’s hips, instead grasping his underclad ass. A shocked moan escapes his best friend’s lips and his eyes fly open. Suddenly the hands that were pulling him closer are pushing him away and his lips are reluctantly dragged away from his friend’s. 

Harry looks sick, plain and simple. He stares down at Ed’s pants which have been unashamedly tented for the last few minutes and gulps. When he does speak it’s barely more than a whisper.  
“I don’t think I’m enjoying this as much as you are” he says, and just like that it’s over. Harry gets up, grabs his clothes and leaves the house without another word. For the rest of the night Ed tricks himself into thinking his best friend is just playing the ‘Confused Heterosexual’ card and that he’ll be back in the morning to smoke the rest of the weed while they watch Charmed re-runs. This thought is promptly destroyed the next day when there is no Harry at his doorstep, no Harry at the comic book store and no Harry picking up the ninety times that Ed called. He watches Charmed alone and ends up hating himself more than usual.

5\. 

He finds Harry a week later sitting alone on a park bench and it doesn’t occur to him for even a second not to join his friend (because that’s how deeply fucked he is, his brain thinks). Ed sits down, takes a deep breath and says what he feels needed to be said all along. By a complete coincidence, Harry says the exact same thing.  
“I’m not gay” they state in unison. Harry then smirks, staring at Ed incredulously. “Really?” he asks, although it’s barely a real question.  
Ed looks at his shoes (which may or may not be filthy from the hours he spent looking around town trying to find his best friend’s ass). “Yeah, I mean no… I like girls. They smell nice and have boobs and stuff. I just- I like guys too? Maybe, I think” He shakes his head, “It’s all kinda complicated right now”  
“Same,” Harry says, before pausing. “Well, actually no, because I like girls but not dudes. I was really high and lonely and confused, and you just happened to be there”. He waves his hand meaninglessly in the air as if to explain all the things that he can’t put into words.  
Harry then places his hand on Ed’s leg and squeezes affectionately. The warmth doesn’t reach his eyes. “You know I can’t give you what you want, right?” He says, and Ed blushes hard. He never wanted to have this conversation.  
“It was just comfort, right? It’s not like you were in love with me or anything” He continues. Ed looks at him for a brief second before staring back at his shoes. “Yeah, of course” He says quietly.  
Harry slips an arm around Ed’s shoulder and squeezes lightly. “You’re going to meet some really nice guy some day, and he’s going to listen to all your Star Trek theories and make you that weird-ass coffee you like-“  
“French vanilla is not weird, I just have a more refined palate than you” Ed interrupts, and finally he smiles.  
“You’re going to meet this guy” Harry says with uncharacteristic tenderness, staring at Ed intently “And he’s gonna see how awesome you really are, and you won’t have to worry about scaring him off because everyone will know that kid is in it for the long run”. Ed doesn’t want to believe it, because hope is what got him into this mess in the first place; but Harry’s voice is so sincere that a tiny part of him clings onto a new, modified version of his original dream, one that doesn’t involve his hyper-hetero best friend but does involve someone else of equal geeky ability maybe with a strong jawline and hair that’s great for pulling.  
Harry pats Ed’s back gently. “We’re gonna be okay, Zeddmore. Just don’t French me anymore and maybe next time I won’t pimp you out to a drug dealer”. They both laugh, because it’s hard not to. 

It’s chilly outside so they decide to grab a pizza down the road. Maybe the jokes are still kinda awkward, and the wounds are raw but Ed is glad to have his best friend back and for once he’s looking forward to what the future holds.


End file.
